Pure Manaʻo

I want to know how my students can be pushed to create the kinds of classrooms where their own students are safe and allowed to make mistakes and take risks. This is a mash up of growth mindset, cultural humility, third space creation, social justice. . .stuff I'm interested in.  Source: Guzman Ingram, L. (2017, September 14). A classroom full of risk takers. Edutopia. Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/article/classroom-full-risk-takers What is Sacred: This is a short little blog post that just includes some advice from teachers of the year about how they create classrooms that honor perseverance, share mistakes, allow retakes, discover the power of yet, and encourage failure Fridays. Connection to Current/Future Work: I had a student that I was concerned about not because she had some odd quirks that she displayed in the classroom, but more that she did not acknowledge that she had these weird quirks which meant that she was standing in front of a classr...

Summary:  This article talks about the fact that punishment does not motivate disruptive students. We know that. We are only responsible for our own behavior and we can only change our own behavior. This article offers an interesting way to map your own response and learn from it. Source:  Lana, T. (2017, September 11). Responding to disruptive students [Web Log]. Edutopia  retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/article/responding-disruptive-students What is Sacred: This map enables teachers to view their movements around the classroom as well as track their emotional and physical data, and to evaluate their own behavior, including outbreaks and negative attention. The other thing I find sacred is the idea of the disappearing teacher. I used to like to do this. Observe my class from a corner, be inconspicuous so that I could really observe the students and get a calm and realistic view of what they really need without having to strictly react, but be mor...

Source:  Alber, R. (2013, October 31). 5 powerful questions teachers can ask students. [Web log]. Retrieved from  https://www.edutopia.org/blog/five-powerful-questions-teachers-ask-students-rebecca-alber?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=cpc What is Sacred: Now that I have been observing teachers, both veteran and new for over five years, I am hyper aware of the questions that I ask in my own classroom. Every time one of my students asks their class, "any questions?" or "understand?" and then moves on, I cringe just a little and vow to model better questions in class later that week. It does not help to scold them or point it out, I just think if better questions are important and if part of humility as a teacher is to ask questions out of mutual curiosity on thinking and not as assessment, that awareness has to come from the teachers themselves. Still, students learning to be teachers need specific guidance and sometimes need neon signs to the watering...

The point: In this American society, we use busy-ness as an excuse but really, we are not bees. Our need to fill time is a fear of the alternative. Busy does not make us happy. So what is the alternative? What is sacred: the present hysteria is not a necessary or inevitable condition of life; it's something we've chosen, if only by our acquiescence to it busyness serves as a kind of existential reassurance, a hedge against emptiness; obviously your life cannot possibly be silly or trivial or meaningless if you are so busy, completely booked, in demand every hour of the day.  I've always understood that the best investment of my limited time on earth was to spend it with people I love. I suppose it's possible I'll lie on my deathbed regretting that I didn't work harder and say everything I had to say, but I think what I'll really wish is that I could have one more beer with Chris, another long talk with Megan, one last good hard laugh with Boyd. ...

My practicum students meet once a week for class and the last 10 minutes or so of class are spent in our kāko'o circle where students are able to bring a problem of practice up to their colleagues and we spend some time in supportive, problem solving conversations. This weekʻs POP was about getting students to stop blurting and yelling out answers. Different students gave their input until I realized that the root of the problem might really be the first step to finding the solution.  Here's the question I asked to my student: did you tell your students that you did not appreciate their behavior?  Her answer:  long pause, slight grin. . ."no." Me: well then, start there and have a conversation of what you would like to see instead. Coincidentally, I got an article in my feeder and lo and behold, here is the first tip: Here's a process along with a few starter ideas to move you in the right direction, whether you're an individual te...

Source: Martinez, M. (2014, November 13). 6 Rules to break for better, deeper-learning outcomes. Edutopia. Retrieved by  http://www.edutopia.org/blog/rules-to-break-deeper-learning-monica-martinez What is Sacred: There are a bunch of short blog articles that I am using as practice for the annotated bibliographies I want my students in intro to teaching to do so this is the first one. Not hard reading, just a practice into reading about teaching. This one is a break down of rules to break in order to allow deeper learning to happen. The post explains each thing more and links to the author's book.   There is an evolving research base that continues to validate what happens in the classroom when we  reimagine teaching and learning to be more active and relevant. So go ahead and break rules, particularly  those 20th-century rules that stop us from moving to a place where students not only tune in, but are empowered to self-direct their le...

Source: Light, N. (2016, November 11). Wobble chairs, bouncy balls let students wiggle while they work. The Dallas Morning News . Retrieved from https://newsela.com/articles/wobble-chairs/id/23767/ What is Sacred: I don't know about sacred, but this article is about flexible seating, specifically using seating options other than the traditional chair or desk with table that some of the high schools still use. Instead, at about $70/chair, teachers are bringing in these wobble chairs. The article is about why they do that and what the results are. 1. It's not for every child, so if you got rid of all of your old chairs or stools, retrieve them back 2. It does help as a differentiation strategy for some students who need to fidget to think Connections to my Current/Future Work: I observed this particular chair at one of the Hawaii elementary schools. I was doing a lesson observation of one of my students and at the back of the room, there was one child with this chair. ...